I didn't know that a traditional gift between men in Japan was typically alcohol . The first time I realized this was when I told my Japanese father-in-law that I was going to visit my family in the US. He and my mother-in-law wanted to send gifts to my parents because they had not met each other yet (long story—maybe I will share in a future post). I noticed two things when I got the gifts from my wife's parents. On one hand my mother-in-law wanted to give my parents snacks and tea that are famous in her region . It was very reminiscent of every gift I ever got from others in Japan—aside from a hand towel that I got from a fellow teacher (I will get into that later). My father-in-law, on the other hand, wanted to give my dad a bottle of very expensive-looking whiskey. My father—a Muslim imam. In contrast, when my father had come for the first time to visit his granddaughter, his idea of a gift for my father-in-law was a jacket. Both ideas are valid within their own ...
I cannot independently verify this, and I don't know if it's true. But when I was still a student at my community college in Southern California, a manager at the restaurant I worked at told me that 80 percent of people would steal if they knew they could get away with it. The number itself was never backed up by any scientific evidence, but the sentiment was later substantiated during my time as a support technician for a security camera company. Crimes like theft are less likely to happen when people know they are being watched. It makes you wonder—are people really that despicable? A few American proverbs come to mind when I think about theft back home. If a person was negligent or simply forgot something on a train or in a taxi, the response was "Oh, you can kiss that goodbye." And the thief might mutter "Finders keepers" to themselves as they get away. Is there a culture around stealing in the United States that I was missing all these years...